Are We Testing or Trusting God?

I hate it, excuse me, allow me to re-phrase that (as I don’t like my children to use the word hate)…I really, really, really don’t like it when things don’t go the way I want them to.

As I’m walking through life all happy as a clam, happy like I just found a fry left in the bottom of the McDonald’s bag kind of happy, I loathe when there’s a bump in the road. Don’t you? Whether the bump is big or the bump is small, we don’t like interruption.

It’s in those bumpy seasons that we can easily find ourselves questioning God. Why was this allowed to happen? I prayed against this and yet here we are. I’m declaring Your Word over this situation and it’s not changing. Or, we might even find ourselves mimicking the thoughts of the disciples that scary night in the boat with Jesus, as the storm was thrashing them about the waters, they said,” Lord, don’t you care?” And we echo the same sentiment, don’t you care? Don’t you see what they are doing to me Lord? Don’t you hear what they are saying about me?

Don’t you love me enough to fix this?

Sweet friend, can I assure you today from the Word of God that He absolutely does love you enough. The book of Jeremiah so beautifully puts it like this: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”

If you have served God any length of time you may think to yourself, duh, I am well aware that He loves me. But are you? Are you really aware that His love goes so deep that we cannot even wrap our heads around this kind of love? Do you know that His love is a fire that will consume your enemies at just the right time?  Can you fully grasp the concept that His mighty love is a force to be reckoned with; that it’s full of might and strength and a ridiculous sense of power?

That when God looks at you He sees nothing but a soul that He loves with an incredible love that this world can’t comprehend. He see’s you as all He ever wanted in a person.

YOU ARE ALL HE EVER WANTED. Forever.

When we truly realize He loves us like that, then perhaps we will begin to reciprocate that love right back to Him. That I would not love God based on what He does or does not do for me, but I’d love Him with an everlasting love.

His character is not dependent on what my circumstances are.

Just because I might walk through a particularly dark valley does not mean that His love has ceased and He’s turned His back to me. If that were the case than His love would fail. And it can’t. But unfortunately sometimes, mine can.

I’ve been studying the word “test” in the Bible. And from what I can find so far, it seems that there is only one time that God tells us to test Him. That one time is mentioned in the book of Malachi and it refers to giving your tithe and offering to the House of the Lord. God says to test Him in it and see if He does not “throw open the windows of Heaven and pour out blessing that there won’t be room enough to contain it!” I love that verse by the way, my favorite scripture on giving. But that’s the only time I see that God says to test Him. But what you will find all throughout scripture is God saying to trust Him. One of my favorites is John 14:1, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me."

There you have it. Trust Him. In the bumps. In the pain. In the hurt. In the slander. In the betrayal. In the storm. In the fear. In the worry. In the chaos. In the joy. In the dream. In the wonder. In this life.

Trust.

And with that trust, throw in some more love and you’ll be amazed at what can happen in your life.